Oil Sands Watch | Pembina Institute
 

Alberta’s Oil Sands

The oil sands underlie approximately 140,800 square kilometres of Alberta, an area about the size of Florida.1
  • The land area open to oil sands leases covers about 20% of Alberta.2
  • Alberta’s oil sands are primarily found in three deposits: Athabasca, Cold Lake, and Peace River.3
Alberta’s first oil sands mine opened in 1967.4
  • The company that started that mine, Great Canadian Oilsands Company, is now called Suncor Energy.5
  • Industrial interest in the oil sands goes back as far as the early 1700s, when local First Nations fur traders brought oil sands samples to the Hudson’s Bay Fort Churchill post.6
Almost 60% of the total oil sands area has been leased to companies for extraction.
  • As of June 2009, the Alberta government had granted 84,000 square kilometers of oil sands leases.7
  • The government grants oil sands leases without an environmental assessment.
Oil sands operations either surface mine the ore or extract the bitumen using in situ techniques.8
  • Surface mining is used for oil sands deposits that are less than 75 metres underground.
  • Deeper deposits are recovered using techniques that heat and extract the bitumen “in place” (in situ) so it can be pumped to the surface.
The surface mineable area is larger than Greater Vancouver.
  • The surface mineable area covers 4,750 square kilometres in the Athabasca Oil Sands Region.9
  • With surface mining, the area is first cleared of trees, then the muskeg is drained of water and removed and then the underlying clay, silt and gravel is removed to expose the oil sands deposit.
  • Large shovels excavate the oil sands and load it in giant trucks that transport it to an extraction plant where heat and water separate the bitumen from the sand.10
By 2008, mining operations had disturbed more than 600 square kilometers of boreal forest.11
  • The developed mining area is as big as Waterton Lakes National Park.
  • In total, more than 1,000 square kilometres have been approved for surface mining operations.12
Oil sands suitable for in situ extraction underlie 135,250 square kilometres — nearly 30 times as large as the surface mineable area.
  • In situ extraction is performed by drilling several wells into the deposit, using steam to heat and separate the bitumen, and then pumping the bitumen to the surface.13
  • Most in situ oil sands deposits are more than 400 metres below the surface.14
  • The two main types of in situ technology are steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) and cyclic steam stimulation (CSS).
Alberta’s oil sands are the second largest petroleum reserve in the world, second only to Saudi Arabia’s crude oil reserve.15
  • The Alberta oil sands contain an estimated 175 billion barrels of crude bitumen that can be recovered using current technology.16
  • In comparison, Canada has an estimated 5.4 billion barrels of conventional crude oil reserves, of which 2 billion barrels are in Alberta.17
  • 18% of the bitumen is surface mineable and 82% is suitable for in situ extraction.18
In 2008, 45% of Canada’s total oil production came from the oil sands,19 and that proportion is growing yearly.
  • Approximately 60% of current oil sands production is from mining operations, with in situ operations producing the other 40%.20
  • At the start of 2009, oil sands operations produced 1.4 million barrels of bitumen per day,21 up from 300,000 barrels per day in 1999.22
  • Even in an economic slowdown scenario, oil sands production is expected to increase rapidly. Forecasts suggest rates will increase to 2.2 million barrels per day by 2015 and to 4.3 million barrels per day by 2030.23

 

  1. 1. Energy Resources Conservation Board, “Oil Sands” (accessed March 30, 2009).
  2. 2. The total area of Alberta is 661,190 square kilometres. Source: Government of Alberta, “About Alberta: Climate and Geography” (accessed June 5, 2009).
  3. 3. Alberta Energy, “What Is Oil Sands” (last revised June 11, 2009).
  4. 4. Energy Resources Conservation Board, “History of Oil Sands Development” (accessed August 2009).
  5. 5. Energy Resources Conservation Board, “History of Oil Sands Development” (accessed August 2009).
  6. 6. Energy Resources Conservation Board, “History of Oil Sands Development” (accessed August 2009).
  7. 7. Alberta Energy, Alberta’s Leased Oil Sands Area (Edmonton, AB: June 24, 2009).
  8. 8. Alberta Energy, “Facts on Oil Sands” (accessed May 14, 2009).
  9. 9. Alberta Energy, Alberta’s Leased Oil Sands Area (Edmonton, AB: June 24, 2009). This delineation of the surface mineable area is an increase of 1,350 square kilometres from the previous delineation, which put the surface mineable area at 3,400 square kilometres. See figure 2-4 in ST98-2009: Alberta’s Energy Reserves 2008 and Supply/Demand Outlook 2009–2018 (Calgary, AB: Energy Resources Conservation Board, June 2009).
  10. 10. Energy Resources Conservation Board, “Oil Sands: Development” (accessed August 2009).
  11. 11. Data from Government of Alberta, personal communication, July 2009. Includes Syncrude Mildred Lake (data start 1977), Suncor Steepbank/Millenium (data start 1978), Suncor Fort Hills (data start 1995), Syncrude Aurora (data start 1998), Shell Muskeg River (data start 2000), CNRL Horizon (data start 2004), Shell Jackpine (data start 2005), Imperial Oil Kearl (data start 2008).
  12. 12. Cited as 93,220 hectares in 2006. Source: Government of Alberta, “State of the Environment &emdash; Land: Oil Sands Mining Development, Activity, and Reclamation” (accessed May 7, 2009).
  13. 13. Energy Resources Conservation Board, “Oil Sands: Development” (accessed August 2009).
  14. 14. Alberta Energy, “Facts on Oil Sands” (accessed May 14, 2009).
  15. 15. Government of Alberta, “Talk About Oil Sands” (accessed May 5, 2009).
  16. 16. Energy Resources Conservation Board, “Oil Sands” (accessed May 14, 2009).
  17. 17. Natural Resources Canada, “Canadian Oil Market: Review of 2006 and Outlook to 2020,” modified January 12, 2009.
  18. 18. Natural Resources Canada, “Canadian Oil Market: Review of 2006 and Outlook to 2020,” modified January 12, 2009.
  19. 19. Calculated from National Energy Board, “Estimated Production of Canadian Crude Oil and Equivalent — 2008,” revised March 2009 (accessed April 28, 2009).
  20. 20. Energy Resources Conservation Board, ST98-2008: Alberta’s Energy Reserves 2007 and Supply/Demand Outlook 2008–2017, June 2008, 2-20.
  21. 21. Energy Resources Conservation Board, “Supply and Disposition of Crude Oil Equivalent (January and February 2009),” updated March 2009. Based on an average of January and February production numbers converted into barrels of bitumen.
  22. 22. Natural Resources Canada, “1999/2000 Annual Sector Reports — Oil Sands” (accessed May 1, 2009).
  23. 23. David McColl, “The Eye of the Beholder: Oil Sands Calamity or Golden Opportunity?” Canadian Energy Research Institute Oil Sands Briefing, February 2009.